Burney's Bytes will focus primarily on the local preps sports scene, but will also touch on some college and pro athletics, mostly in regards to athletes who hail and have played high school sports in Oakland County. My goal for the blog is to be conversational and anecdotal, a more relaxed and free formal take on high school athletics than you see in regular game day coverage.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

CRS-Two

CHRIS IS THEIR NAME AND HOOPING IS THEIR GAME

Two of the hottest prep basketball prospects in the county right now are Waterford Mott's Chris Dewberry and Novi's Chris Milon. Both local hoop kings are showing off their skills on the AAU and showcase camp circuits this summer and people are taking notice.

Dewberry, nicknamed "RIP City" for his similarity to Richard Hamilton on the hardwood, right down to his protective face mask, is the more-known of the pair right now. He has been a major player on the county's varsity hoops scene for two seasons already and he is only going into his junior year. Starting out at Oak Park as a freshman on a stacked Knights squad, Dewberry transferred to Waterford Mott last season and helped lead the Corsairs to a conference championship with his dead-eye shooting and sparkplug defense. This summer Dewberry has been grinding hard and upping his recruiting value every time he steps on the court with his STARS AAU squad. Besides being named to a number of all-camp and all-tournament teams, his outside-marksmanship has been exceedingly good – he went 7for7 from downtown in a recent tourney outing – and is ability to create his own shot off the dribble is quickly improving. Oh, yeah, he's AUTOMATIC the charity stripe too. To categorize Dewberry's game in one word – EFFICIENT!

I knew Dewberry was going to be an outright CAGE STUD the first game I saw him play as a 9th grader at Oak Park when he came into a nip-and-tuck battle with Pontiac Northern and scored seven points in five minutes, including a game-tying triple to send the contest into OT.

Milon, who I have decided to nickname, "The Million Dollar Man" (because this kid is pure MONEY running the floor), is a 6-5 wing going into his senior campaign this winter with major hops and a soft touch from 15 feet inward. He's kind of been in the shadows the past two seasons as a role player for the Wildcats, sharing minutes with upperclassmen, but if this spring and summer are in indication, he's ready to BLOW UP this year. Playing with the OAA Select in AAU comp, Milon has emerged as a leader and scrap-master in the paint and on 'D'. The OAA Select 17-u team has had a lot of success recently and Milon, flanking Holly gunner and fast-improving point guard, Josh Fugate, has been a big reason why. Taking a steady flow of Fugate passes on the fastbreak these past few months, he's really been able to give scouts and fans alike a taste of his monster slam dunking skills and his stellar finishing ability at the rim.In the winter, expect Milon to team with Wildcats' teammate and fellow high-riser Samier Ozier (arguably top inside-outside threat in the county alongside Seaholm's Shawn Conway) to form one of the best frontcourt tandems in Metro Detroit.

About Me

Scott M. Burnstein grew up in Bloomfield Hills and attended school at Birmingham Roeper, where he earned multiple varsity letters in both basketball and baseball, and has been following the local preps scene since the 1980's. Mr. Burnstein attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he received a bachelors of arts degree in political science, and the John Marshall Law School, in Chicago, Illinois, where he got his Juris Doctrate. He has covered high school sports for both the Detroit Free Press and the Oakland Press, and is the author of the 2007 regional best-selling book, The Motor City Mafia - A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit, Family Affair - Greed, Treachery, and Betrayal in The Chicago Mafia (2010), Mafia Prince - The Crazy Phil Leonetti Story (2012) and The Detroit True Crime Chronicles (2013).